want to bring in tom foreman in washington. if you look at the map there, you see there's friends, there's enemies, there's plenty on both sides. so what would this accomplish if there was a limited missile strike? would it actually change this game, this regional game, if at all? >> it depends on how those friends react. if you think about syria, it's not actually that big of a player on the world stage. about 22 million people there, about two los angeless. that's another way of looking at it. but its friends are very powerful. let's take a look at those. if you bring in some of the biggest players here, iran, russia, and china, why do they care about syria? why would it matter to them? they do have long trading relationships with them. russia and china in particular have had a lot of dealings with arms with them, in addition to certain natural resources like natural gas, that sort of thing. and this may be the more important part over here. this is seen by many factions out there, particularly the irans, syria is seen as a f